Drivers can get special license plates for their cars that use the letters and numbers to spell out a name or message on their "vanity tag". As a joke, twenty-five years ago Danny White from Washington D.C. got plates that said "NO-TAGS".

Problem is, the Department of Motor Vehicles can't handle the joke. You see, whenever someone writes a ticket for a car that doesn't have license plates, what do they write? They write "NO TAGS".

That's why he estimates he's gotten over $20,000 in parking tickets that aren't for him. He doesn't want to change his personalized plate, and the government computer system isn't set up to track his problem.

He's got to go in every few months with a handful - a large handful - of tickets to clean up the mess.

Finally, the government told ticket writers to change the way they write tickets. And they're thinking of revoking Mr. White's troublesome plate.

This is not a problem that's unique to Mr. White.

The urban legend website Snopes has documented other true cases of personalized plates causing problems - some dating back to 1979 - from different states.